Airline Passenger Refuses to Be Groped by Security; Becomes a Folk Hero

Discover, November 15 2010.

John Tyner missed his flight to South Dakota for a pheasant hunting trip with his father-in-law. He wasn’t late to the airport, he didn’t get lost in the terminal. He never made it into the terminal because he wouldn’t partake in either a whole body scan or a physical pat-down of his genitals. A

fter arriving at the airport, Tyner was pulled aside to go through a “whole body scan,” an radiation-based machine that takes an image of your body under your clothes. He “opted out” of the scan only to realize the alternative is just as bad. He asked the TSA officer who was patting him down not to touch his privates. Actually, he said: “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.” The matter quickly escalated, according to his blog post about the incident. Read More >